taxonomites | now i rock a house party at the drop of a hat.

now i rock a house party at the drop of a hat.

It's around five o'clock in the morning when the citizens of Taxon find themselves inexplicably transported into rooms within the Sanctuary. Doors are left open and beds unmade, food abandoned and lights left on, still shining brightly for those who were awake and are no longer present. The Extras don't seem to notice the captive population's sudden disappearance, continuing on with their business as usual.

For those relocated, though, it's an entirely different story.

They find themselves in rooms with white, alabaster walls that gives them an almost too-clean feeling, as if the entire place was sanitized prior to their arrival. The room assignments are seemingly random, people placed on floors with those they don't know and don't like, people they would rather not be within twenty feet of. It matters not, for what's done is done and cannot be undone. For those who happen to have pets, they'll find them waiting for their owners in the rooms as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

The only thing the captives have managed to bring with them is the clothes on their back and the tablets. On them, they find the following message:

SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE PLEASE ENJOY YOUR STAY WHILE WE ADDRESS CERTAIN TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

Unfortunately for those who try to find a means of escape, they'll discover there is none. Leaving the Sanctuary will prove to be as difficult as leaving Taxon itself. However, if one heads down the right corridor and the right floor, they'll find something else entirely lurking in their midst...

( ooc | sorry for the delay in posting! your mods were otherwise occupied with things of the irl variety this morning. THIS BE A PARTY POST, Y'ALL. room assignments are here, and refer back to the sott post proper for any additional information. please contact us with any questions/concerns you may have in regards to this plot. ♥ )

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Paul rotates his head slowly and gingerly until he can see Cain, even though he knows the voice.

"Relaxing," he says in grim deadpan. "You?"

Slowly, Paul uncurls his spine back the other direction, to put his feet on the floor again and then straighten up with a grimace. This was easier ten years ago.

Oh for the love of peaches.

Cain blinks, closes his eyes only to find the image of impossibly agile agent imprinted on the back of his eyelids, and sighs. Wishing despite himself for his hat, which offered just the right amount of shadow to hide his face in.

"Walking. I'd steer clear of the thirteenth floor if I were you."

If he were in his own world, Paul would know exactly what to make of Cain's slight hesitation before answering, and he would smirk a little. But this is Cain and Cain's world is weird (and Can pings as so, so straight to him) and Paul dismisses it as Cain's-just-never-seen-yoga-before.

"Why, what's up there?" Said as he kneels down on the ground and starts to arch back into the ustrasana position.

No, Cain has never seen yoga. Stretches, yes. What would roughly equal kata, yes. Not this.

Nothing at all like this, that makes him think of dancers-and-not, of silent, invisibly strength and finding himself drawn to it.

He stays put. "Floor plans says it's a tornado. Those are never good news."

That earns a pause from Paul during which he is motionless, frozen in what looks like it should be a really uncomfortable position although he seems okay with it.

".....a tornado," he echoes.

"....I kind of want to go see it." He resumes arching his spine backwards.

He makes it look too easy, Cain rationalizes. That's why he's having a hard time looking elsewhere.

"That's 'cause you're certifiably insane," he notes dryly. "Or maybe one of those moves dislocated your brain from the rest of your body, I don't know."

"Well, I have been called crazy before," Paul admits, continuing to stretch back until he's looking more or less at the floor.

Despite himself the yoga is helping, which is why he does it-- dropping his blood pressure back down, focusing him to concentrate solely on the body and not the anger, fear, frustration.

"Mmf. Yoga doesn't dislocate anything unless you're doing it really really wrong," he mutters, eyes closed as he takes as deep breaths as his posture allows him to.

"How do you even begin to do that thing?" He half scoffs, finding comfort and distraction both in ingrained skepticism.

"How does a guy get it into his head it's a good idea to twist his spine the wrong way over?"

And yet, no amount of grouchiness can completely hide the plain, simple intrigue.

"Practice?" Paul deadpans back again. He re-straightens, then sits down on the mat for some spinal twists, elbow against knee, tuuuurn. What he never had on other agents in sheer strength and size, Paul had made up in quickness, agility. He's older now, things pop and grind a little more than they used to, but the yoga's served him in pretty good stead ever since those long ago college days.

He closes his eyes as he stretches, keeps them closed as he answers Cain.

"It's a meditative practice from... a country in my world. Sort of a religious thing. But a lot of health benefits."

A half-a-smile. "It's good for you, Officer Cain."

All right, the sigh Cain lets out seems to say. It's the kind of sigh that comes with raised shoulders that slump in the aftermath; a sure sign of surrender.

"If you say so, Agent Smecker. Show me the ropes?"

Paul's eyes crack back open for a blink at Cain. "...what, seriously?" he asks, genuinely taken aback.

Cain just doesn't strike him as the sort of guy who'd be into yoga. But again, Paul is judging based on his own concepts of masculinity, from his own world.

It's obviously Cain's turn to give half a smile, or more of a tiny, victorious smirk. Victorious only for giving Paul pause, for a change. He has no idea why, but he did it, and something at the back of his head tells him he may just have scored a point.

Cain likes scoring points, obscure though they may be.

He walks over, coming to a stop in a relatively casual crouch beside his friend. "Be honest. Do you know anyone less relaxed?"

Paul straightens back out from the twist to the side to look at Cain, and then shrugs.

"At the moment, you're probably in the running, yes. Alright." A little pause, as Paul's still a touch bemused.

"....well... take off your socks, for starters, or your feet will slide out of the on the mat."

There's no verbal response; there's no need. He nods, sits down to pull his socks off. For having walked around twelve floors they're surprisingly clean, which means he doesn't have to worry about them for the time being.

He doesn't remember ever being so nitpicky about things like neat and tidy, but for what it's worth it helps. Clutter just grates. Dirt does too.

All that aside, once socks are folded and feet are suitably bare, he tilts his head to watch his friend once more. "Just so we're clear, I'm probably less bendy than a robotic unit."

Paul half-laughs. "Yoga will make you bendier," he says, and wriggles his toes absently as he figures what position to start with.

"Okay. Well. First off, if you're feeling tired or out of breath, you stop and you rest, this is not an endurance thing. Secondly, the positions aren't supposed to hurt, so if you're feeling actual pain, you're in it too deep, you're pushing it too hard too fast."

He's never tried to teach yoga before. Paul regards his own toes a moment, then shrugs. What the hell, he can try.

"Lie down on your back," Paul says, and does just that himself. "First position we'll learn is called savasana, it's a resting position done at the end of a set but it's a good way to start too if you ask me."

Paul decides against saying this is also known as the corpse pose.

"Seems like as good a start as anything. If I can't learn to relax while lying down..." There's hesitation lurking somewhere behind his sternum, but he scoots back and eases himself down on the mat despite the brief flash of tension. He didn't expect feeling vulnerable, but then he didn't know what to expect in the first place, watching as the other man nudges his arms and hands into their proper place, moving to his legs and hands.

The touch seems to come much later than any visual impression, but it doesn't make him recoil like it might have when he first Arrived. It's something, at least.

Paul nudges Cain here and there until he's in the right position, although Cain still looks pretty tense to him.

"Okay, good, now-- try and relax," he says with a crooked smile for the knowledge of how easy that is to say, how hard to do. "Let your limbs just be dead weight. Unclench your jaw, let it be loose. Close your eyes if that helps; if not, keep them open.

"And breathe. Just let your abdomen fill with air-- breathe with the belly too, not the chest alone. You ever see a baby breathe?" Paul asks, forgetting at the moment that Cain has mentioned his son-- and any father likely spent time watching his infant child breathe.

As innocent a remark as it is, as well-meaning, it still feels like a knife stabbed into his chest and pulled down. It guts him.

He rolls his jaw, keeps his eyes closed like his life depends on it, swallows against the unexpected wave of grief - and breathes deep.

He used to watch Jeb for hours as a baby.

He only remembers fragments of it, bits and pieces that don't quite fit together, like someone grabbed several boxes of jigsaw puzzles and mixed them all together. He'd lull him back to sleep at night, carry him around the house and outside in summertime if it was warm enough. A warm, soft little bundle full of life and with a pair of lungs to wake people up several miles away.

"Yeah," he grinds out. Nothing to see here, carry on, move along.

Cain tenses-- something Paul said was wrong. Paul purses his lips but knows better than to ask or pry or even apologize because that would mean acknowledging he said something wrong and that too would be prying. If Cain wants to be manly about it, far be it from Paul to get in the way of that.

"Okay," he says neutrally. "Infants and toddlers, they breathe with the belly, the whole body. It's more natural than just the chest breath. So let the air fill you-- then let it out, slow. Do this a couple of times. Try and visualize that you're sinking into the floor."

There's no need to visualize, he can feel it happening, he's sinking right through the floors and plummeting to the ground.

He breathes, drifting closer to the surface for every breath. The room spins around him, and after long moments of just breathing deep, he pulls himself together as best he can. Opening his eyes, terrified of finding a tiny rounded glass pane his only connection to the outside world. Lashes damp, eyes burning, the words are out there before he can stop them.

"I miss him," he whispers, like it's the single most shameful secret in the entire world.

It isn't even about being manly. It's about being Cain.

Paul's eyes flicker to Cain's face-- read the anguish written there-- and Paul exhales. This is no longer about yoga right this second. Something bigger's here, something raw for the other man.

He almost asks who but memory surfaces, mention of a son along with the wife. Ah. And here's he's asking shit about babies. Great. Great.

Paul draws his hands back from adjusting Cain's position, sits with his ankles crossed and his hands resting in his lap.

"How old was he last time you... saw him?"

Cat's officially out of the bag, news at ten: Wyatt Cain does have a heart.

Right now, he'd very much prefer the opposite. The complete absence of memories rather than the diffuse ones currently occupying his mind, the stark lack of anything remotely resembling a heart rather than the aching mess crawling its way up his throat.

He shrugs stiffly, eyebrows scooting up a ways before settling, eyes looking elsewhere. "I don't know. Anything between sixteen and twenty. Looked twice as old at times. Had more frown lines than me.

"...looked just like his mother when he smiled. Like me when he didn't."

Cain's not looking at him, so Paul lets himself look at Cain; the drawn lines appearing on Cain's normally youthful face, the tight clench to his jaw.

Paul lets his eyes drift down to Cain's chest instead, although the tension and pain in the other man's just as visible in his shoulders and white knuckles than in his face.

Paul breathes out. Many times as he's had to express professional condolences, it's different when it's someone you give a personal damn about. Can't rely on Bureau-sanctioned lines then.

"But he's alive. Yeah? That's what I gathered from what you said before. It's a kick right in the balls and up into the heart no matter how you cut it, but you know he's out there somewhere, living. Does that make it any better, or just worse?"

He shakes his head. What else can he do but shake his head and allow himself a moment of wallowing in ill becoming self pity?

"I don't know. Last time I saw him, we were gearing up to spring a surprise attack on Queen Bitch HQ. Him and his men were going to act diversion to the guards by blowing stuff up and charging...while we sneaked in the back door."

In a manner of speaking, that is. He clears his throat. His voice still soft, still quiet. "Anything could have happened after we split up. I don't know, and it's killing me." For a brief, treacherous little heartbeat his lips almost wobbles right into a cynical, snide little smile.

"I don't know shit. I don't know if he's alive. I don't know when my wife died, or how. I don't know how come when I came here, two of my friends-in-arms had been here for months already. And you know the worst part?"

Paul brings up one knee to his chest, lets an elbow rest on it, his chin on his palm.

Lot of things he could say to Cain's words, but this isn't about his snappy comebacks, it isn't even really about advice. Sometimes someone needs to talk. Sometimes someone needs someone to listen. Paul considers himself a horrible choice for the figure of father confessor, he always has, hated the helplessness back when it was Angela, but it's a thing you do when you give a shit about the person.

"What's the worst part, Wyatt?" he asks quietly, as near as he can recall the first time the other man's name has passed his lips.

now i rock a house party at the drop of a hat.

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[location] and I have no idea how much info the floor plans give, but hey, that's what improv's for

[location] improv <3

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